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It’s Never Too Early to Begin

by Shannon Wood
January/February 2010
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/its-never-too-early-to-begin/5019198/

Part of our responsibility as early childhood educators is to help the children in our care develop into thoughtful, kind, contributing members of society. This includes being accepting and welcoming of those who are ‘different.’ Staff needs to be prepared to answer questions from young children regarding differences in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, family structure, religion, and physical abilities. It is never too early to begin this work, and there is much that teachers and caregivers of our youngest children can do to provide children with a good start in this area. As is true for all age groups, multicultural/anti-bias education must be approached in a developmentally appropriate manner for infants and toddlers. This article explores:

• developmentally and culturally appropriate multicultural/anti-bias goals for infants, toddlers, and their care­givers
• suggestions for setting up the learning environment to meet these goals, and
• ideas for initiating your own profes-sional and personal development in this area.

It is important to realize that every group is a multicultural group. Even when a group is racially or ethnically homogenous, there are sure to be differences in family structure, socioeconomic class, religion, family values, caregiving practices, and many other aspects of culture, which each family develops for itself.  Even a study of ...

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